Bulgaria electronic road tax vignettes go on sale online on December 17 – road agency
Motorists will be able to buy Bulgaria’s new electronic road tax stickers – officially known as “vignettes” – online via a website and an app from December 17 2018.
This was announced by Anton Antonov, head of the national toll administration of Bulgaria’s Road Infrastructure Agency.
The e-portal being developed would have the capacity to cope with 10 000 simultaneous visits, Antonov said.
Motorists whose cars have physical vignettes valid for 2019 would be able to convert them to the electronic version via the bgtoll.bg site and at the counter. Users will have to input the registration number and the date of validity of the road tax sticker.
From January 1 2019, there will be a new type of vignette, for a weekend, costing 10 leva (about five euro). This is intended for people who travel less often, Antonov said. The weekend vignette would be valid from noon on Friday to midnight on Sunday.
He said that there would be 500 self-service terminals, yet to be installed. They would be at businesses along the road network, mainly fuel stations. At the terminals, debit or credit cards or a fuel card may be used. It will also be possible to pay the tolls at retail outlets and via banks.
He said that the IT system would use encryption and would be hardly vulnerable to hacker attacks.
The national toll administration would have 650 assigned to check whether cars had vignettes. They will use 150 cars, patrolling at various times of day, some equipped with cameras to detect whether a vehicle’s licence plate is registered as having a vignette.
Those caught without vignettes would either have to pay a compensatory fee on the spot or within 14 days by bank transfer. If the fee is not paid within this deadline, there would be a fine of 300 leva.
Offenders leaving Bulgaria would be required to pay the fee at the border.
Antonov said that in addition to the patrol cars, there would be about 300 cameras on the national road network to detect offenders by checking their vehicle registration numbers.
The compensatory fee to be paid by motorists who have not paid to use the national road network would be 70 leva for light cars, 125 leva for vehicles between 3.5 tons and 12 tons, and 175 leva for vehicles of more than 12 tons.
Vignette prices in 2019 will be the same as in 2018. For cars, the prices are, for a weekly sticker 15 leva (or eight euro), monthly, 30 leva (or 15 euro), three-monthly 54 leva (or 28 euro) and annual, 97 leva (or 50 euro).
